IBD: 

Far from letting us breathe a sigh of relief, the latest National Intelligence Estimate reporting that Tehran has shelved its nuclear program creates confusion. In politicized spy agencies, “facts” oftentimes aren’t.

Two years ago, the National Intelligence Estimate, reflecting the coordinated judgment of the 16 U.S. spy agencies under the guidance of the newly established office of director of national intelligence, could self-assuredly “assess with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure.”

Now the same supposedly authoritative intelligence community consensus is whistling an entirely different tune. The new report, once again with “high confidence,” says Iran’s program to build a nuclear weapon has been out of operation since the fall of 2003.

“Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005,” it states.

The change is supposedly the result of intercepted communications between Iran’s military commanders in which complaints of the program being shut down were overheard. Some senior administration policymakers suspect Iranian deception.

Here are some of the reasons our spy agencies’ switcheroo should cause more, not less, worry:

• The intelligence community’s renewed certainty that Iran did indeed have a nuclear weapons program.

• Our continued lack of human intelligence (real live spies and informers) within hostile regimes and terrorist organizations.

• The lack of confidence our spy agencies command because of the obvious fact that they either got it entirely wrong on Iran building nuclear weapons two years ago, or they have it all wrong now.

• The new estimate’s “moderate-to-high-confidence” judgment that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons” and that, given its continued enrichment of uranium, Iran may have a nuclear weapon as soon as 2010.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency’s 2006 discovery of traces of highly enriched uranium on nuclear equipment — suggesting a true goal of producing enriched-uranium fuel for weapons.